Well I think with our common mens knowlidge we cannot say anything more concrete than we have already said. The reason why I haven’t give adequate explanation is becouse I don’t know much more than I’ve already said about ship engines. I’ve made my quess based on the availble facts and I remain in it. I do however aknowlidge the counter arguments that you have made and I cannot 100% to overrule them. But I think the next chinese DDG that will merge will tell us alot about the overall succesfulness of the 052 class. If it incorporates the same machinery plant than the previous ships, then I propaply got my quess wrong, but if it have a different propulsion plant, I can consider my quess being right.

fact that 112/113 got a certain kind of plant means that the Chinese had experience with it, which may have been a factor in their choices for 052B/C. Perhaps the choice for a GTu/Diesel combo is also in part explained by experience with CODAD on the frigates. But I don’t think there is a deterministic path here, where the choices for 112/113 locked in subsequent choices for 168-171..

I think we have tuned up in here. You see I never stated (least not intentionally) that the propulsion choise for the 052B/C was forced to follow the 112/113, but that the somewhat still growing chinese ship building sector decided that its safer and faster to go with the already prooven solution. If they would have choosen for lets say GOGOG arragment, I doupt the ships rather fast building time could have been achived.

But that’s exactly what I have been looking at, general arrangement! What would be so different in terms of engine rom layout and funnel location etc between 2 Gtu + 2 diesel and 2 Gtu + 2 Gtu? In principle, it would not be hard to put put 2 smaller Gtu in exactly the same spot as the 2 diesels, while sticking to similar gear box placings. And, as my examples of plant in relation to funnel arrangement (Krivak/Udaloy, Slava+Kara/Kashin+Delhi) indicate, similar powerplant arrangement have worked with different funnel arrangements. So, why the reverse could not also work is not clear to me. Also, if the Chinese can independently come up with a design for a Codog arrangement (112/113), why can’t they also come up with design for a Cogag? I remain unconvinced.

Untill we can see further information related to chinese shipdesigns, we can only quess. An my quess is that the Chinese choosed the arragment in 052B/C due their lack of experience in both operational and design. We must remeber that 052 class destroyers where the first ever operational gas turbined warships in PLAN service so unlike with many other navies, gas turbines are rather new for China. So in theory it could be possiple to include a GOGAG arragment with the funnel layout of 052B/C , but replacing diesels with gas turbines isen’t some minor task.

So why didn’t china come up with the GOGAG arragment? Well like i said china have limited knowlidge with gas turbines, but quite long experience with Diesels. Also the fact that the Ukrainian firm could deliver workable GOGAG plant speaks form the fact that it haven’t got much of saying to the chinese decision making. Becouse with ships of this size, 6000-7000 tons or even more, a GODAG with only two LM2500 isen’t exactly the best choise. I belive that china have made the engine decision by themsleves, based on their capabilities and not prooven out to be so succesfull. Othervise there would be more than just two ships build per class. I bet my hat that the next chinese DDG will have different machinery arragment.

Rephrased, why would designing a ship for a COGOG/COGAG arrangement be so much more difficult than designing a ship for CODOG/CODAG, or CODAD for than matter (054)

Apparently it is, becouse I see no other reason why would china go for GODAG arragment in such a large ships. And designing isen’t the only factor. Maintenance and operation are also important, perhaps chinese felt that it would be more cost-effective to go for somewhat prooven system in PLAN service already. Weirder solutions have been made for more minor reasons. I think that the chinese just missjudged some factors and based with trials and operational experiences, they discovered the solution not being so good and thus didn’t continue the class. China is just learning to be a major navy with major surface combatants.

But remember i’m just making quesses based on the limited knowledge of mine. I hope there would be more information of this matter but untill then we can only speculate.

First for the topic it self…

to crobato
I think we drift too far from the engine issue if we start parsing all Russian commitment to the desings. Offcourse Russians would have large consultation to the ships when they know that their weaponry&equipment is chosed, but I Still remain my stance that Chinese were the ones desing the actual ship and its porpulsion solutions based on the fact that they knew what was offered. I dont denye the helping issue, My orginal claim was that the porpulsion system choosen for the ships wasent choosen as the best possiple one to it, but best one available.

To Snake65,
This is rather new to me, Where you get that information about the project numbers? Thougth it wont change outrigth my position, as it migth be just russian accounting byrocracy gig that asserts project numbers to all vessels the desing firm is working on with…but I would love to hear more about that part….

and the to offtopic…

Chinawhite, Do you honestly belive that when your NCC is owned and run by the same company which I am part with, I didn’t know about it and didn’t have anything to say about matters that came along there?? Please…and as for the rest, lets try to keep this thread clean and continue this in PM level if you want to continue….

The only rumours that get passed through SDF are a few years old or already been dismissed. Thats why most people go to either CDF or try to find information themselves

….That would sound far more accurate if not comming form a guy being banned from SDF ages ago… 😉

Are you sure about that? If the ship has SA-N-12, MA Fregat and Mineral ME radars, the Russians would have to help at least by obligation to the installation and support of these radars and missiles.

Perhaps there have been some system configuration assistence, but certainly not any russian participation in the actual desiginig of the ship. When you build a house, you don’t let the kithcen system deliverer to draw he architect drawings, do you?

If Ukraine supplied the system, they’re at least also obligated by contract to provide technical services in the installation of such a system and this may include design input necessary to house the system.

Not neccerical. Ofcourse the shipbuilders have consulted the ukrainian firmduring the prosess, but I’m pretty certain that the decisions have been made by the chinese side alone. The Ukrainians are the system providers but I doupt they role is anyway bigger than that. But If you have additional information over this matter, or anything else concerning the 052B/C development pace, please feel free to share it, I’m more than happy to learn new stuff.

Agree. But while the Chinese problem with 113 was that the arrangement had already been set, and they had to shoe-horn in different GTUs, I don’t think that’s the same situation as with 052B/C, which were alltogether new later designs. Apart from constraints like a preexisting design, there is no technical reason why China could not adopt an all GTu arrangement, is there?

I think there is. The 052B/C have exactly the same engine arragment which indicates that Chinese adopted it directly form the previous ships. And as they adopted a arragment which they cannot with the current availability of gas turbines totally 100 % to fullfill, it speaks about the capability of chinese ship designs in general. Frankly thats not very suprising. China have very little expereince in destroyer designs and apparently they are not able to design a completely new destroyer with new more powerfull GOGAG arragment.

I know this sound rather gloomy but it’s a harsh fact. It took over ten years to field the first chinese destroyer, Luda class in the early 70’s based for soviet blueprints aquired before the break-up of the project 41 dated back late 40’s. After that the first non Luda class destroyer desingn is the 052 which is the first chinese indegenious design. No wonder it has minor defaults and the follow-ons of the class are suffering form the same illness that the first ships. But china have just starting to rise so we cannot expect too much from it. Give her time and I’m sure the next generation of chinese destroyers are far more mature designs. All other shipbuilding countries have suffered form same difficoulties when they where new on the buisness, just look at the soviet destroyer development in the 30’s and 40’s…there’s afull lot of similarities and the last soviet destroyers, Udaloys are one of the finest of the world…

If there was older turbojets under considedration, was the RR Spey (WS-9) involved with this plane? I recall reading something about some earlier chinese efforts to design a fighter around spey engines but never heard a mention of Super-7 with spey. The engine is pretty much similar size than the more modern turbofans…

The important thing to remember is that, PLAN does use engine type to differentiate the destoyer family lines. All 051 line destroyers are steam engine. All 052 line destroyers are gas turbine engined. For the foreseable future, new destroyers will still grow on the 051 and 052 family lines, in other words, the next new generation of PLAN’s destroyers will be 051D and 052D. Unless there is a brand new engine type is introduced into service, and PLAN still uses the current designation system, you won’t see 055 in decades, but you will see 051D, 052D fairly soon

Perhaps so but it still doesen’t make the fact vanish that the 052B/C and the older 113 are having inferior engines that where orginally planned for the ships. If PLAN is about to incorporate another steam powered ships then it just shows the inadequance of chinese shipdesign standarts as all other major warship builders have moved onwards to using either gas or diesel engines (only difference are carrier size ships). Using steam engines in modern destroyer designs is pretty much same as using turbojets in modern fighters.

The reason why I want to point this out to you is because you seem to believe 051 line of destroyers were forced to use steam engine, which is not true. 051 is supposed to be steam engine powered. This is a very common misunderstanding though, recently I noticed Taiwan’s military magazines started to realised this issue. An article was written about it as well.

Just to make things clear, with 051 you are meaning the 051B/C. Or are you stating that Luda class is having some other propulsion system than steam turbines?
But it’s not misunderstandment that 051B/C uses steam turbines, but a fact. The “sources” that state the ships having a gasturbines says that the arragment is similar as in the 052 class which is physically impossiple.

BTW, I noticed other people already asked you to share those rumors about 052C’s alleged engine problems. Can you please tell us anyway?

So, I am really interested in the rumors you heard

What type of problems?. How were these rumours sourced?

Rumours, yeas…where did I hear them? It recal it was the company’s horsemens who heard it from the ambulance driver (little bit finnish military humour :p )

rumours are stuff you hear but cannot say certain about their source. If I’d have said that there is an alledged info then you are right to demand a source, but with rumours I cannot give it becouse frankly I don’t remeber it.

But what comes to the actual rumours and rumouded proplems, Vario in fact told the incident which I was refering. But however I do not agree with his conclusion. First the nature of rumours often includes some truth buried inside and seccondly GODOG arragment incorporates diesel engines to be used in lower speeds. I’m not awere of the fuel storage and consumption rates of the 052B/C class ships but diesel engines enables you to “get home” form reasonable distances.